By Eliot Van Buskirk This is the Listening Post blog’s final post.After today, you can follow our music coverage on the Underwire culture blog, courtesy of current LP writer Scott Thill. I’ll keep covering the collision of music and technology on the Epicenter business blog. As things evolved there was a great deal of overlap among Listening Post, Epicenter and Underwire so there is a wisdom t
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See You on the Flip Side
Sweet Sounds of the Original Bottle Rocket Soundtrack
It may not have been as polished as his later works Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums, but Wes Anderson's film debut, Bottle Rocket, brimmed with a beautiful brand of naivete not concentrated as strongly in his later films. One reason...
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Qtrax Signs Third Major Label Deal - with Sony
The ambitious ad-supported music service Qtrax has announced a deal with its second major label: Sony. As part of the deal, Qtrax will offer Sony’s digital music catalog for free to those who install its music downloading client.As with Qtrax’s deals with EMI and Universal, Sony only agreed to license its regular digital music catalog, consisting of the same music it has already licensed to di
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Guitar Center's Drum-Off Snares Superstar Judges
Six lucky candidates from a field of 5,000 have survived local and regional contests across hundreds of Guitar Center stores to compete at the 2008 Drum-Off finals on January 10. But who will walk away the best new skin-pounder in...
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Music Sales Forecasts Might Be Silly
Forrester has new predictions about the future of music. Apparently, 41 percent of music sales will be digital by 2013. As previous studies have shown, the increase in digital sales will not make up for the ongoing decline in CD sales, and so as a result, the music market will shrink at a compound annual growth rate of 0.8, dropping to $9.8 billion in 2013. Sales in 2008, by comparison, are ex...
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Amazon MP3 Invades Britain
British music fans have a new option for purchasing music online: Amazon MP3, which sells music from all of the major labels and thousands of indie labels in the MP3 format without copyright protection. The British version of Amazon MP3 launched quietly on Wednesday, with no fanfare from the retail giant but was spotted by the Britain-based MusicAlly.Amazon MP3 offers DRM-free music from all of...
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Best Xmas Tune Ever? Willie and Colbert's Ode to Weed
A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All has redefined the holiday special for the new millennium. But it may also have redefined holiday songs for the 21st century as well, especially Willie Nelson and Stephen Colbert's "Little Dealer Boy."...
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Google Launches 'First Collaborative Online Orchestra' on YouTube
For many aspiring classical musicians, the dream of playing Carnegie Hall is destined to remain elusive. But in five months, the best and brightest entrants in Google's recently-announced "YouTube Symphony Orchestra" contest will take that stage to perform Chinese composer...
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Open Source iTunes Competitor Songbird Officially Released
Songbird is like an open source version of iTunes that handles just about everything that program does, while swapping out the iTunes store interface in favor of the world’s music blogs.You can stream music from those sources directly within the program (try that with iTunes’ browser), purchasing whatever music you encounter there that strikes your fancy from multiple sources: Amazon, Amie St.
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Live Nation to Sell Tickets at Remaining Blockbuster Locations
Live Nation and Blockbuster announced a three-year contract that will put the promoter’s large-scale ticketing system exclusively in 500 or so brick-and-mortar Blockbuster locations.As part of the deal, blocks of tickets to shows ticketed by Live Nation will be available only at Blockbuster locations for the first four hours that they’re on sale. The plan will go into effect after Live Nation
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'Revolutionary' Glove Could Rehabilitate Guitarist's Hand
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After Long Blondes guitarist Dorian Cox suffered a stroke in June that paralyzed the right side of his body, calling into question his future as a guitarist. Since he plays leftie, a paralyzed right hand means no fretwork. However, Cox...
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Microsoft Launches 'Unsigned' Band Site
Late 2008 might seem a bit late for the launch of a brand new website where bands can post their videos in hopes of being discovered, but Microsoft apparently doesn't think so. The company launched MSN Unsigned on Monday, giving...
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ArenaFest, Sellaband Hope Youth Embrace Interactive Festival
Next summer, the youth of America will have a new entertainment option competing for their summer job income: the first annual ArenaFest, a 91-event interactive, multifaceted festival that will tour ten of the nation's major indoor arenas in summer 2009....
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Guns N' Roses' Lawyer Accuses Dr Pepper of Fraud
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Dr Pepper's recent publicity stunt in which the soda manufacturer offered to give every American (with a few exceptions) a free soft drink if Guns N' Roses managed to release its long-awaited Chinese Democracy album by the end of 2008...
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More DRM-Free Major Label Music Sneaks onto iTunes
The world's three largest record labels have been negotiating to offer their music without DRM in the iTunes music store for the first time ever, according to Cnet sources who couldn't confirm that the labels had agreed to ditch digital...
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Thanks For the Tectonic Sonics, 2008!
Thanksgiving is tomorrow for us Americans, so Listening Post would like to take the time today to give thanks for the stellar year in music. Here are five examples of why it was exceedingly easy to tune in, turn on,...
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Paul McCartney Doesn't Mind Free Music
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Fans who can't find the Beatles in the iTunes store can take some solace in Paul McCartney's recent admission that he doesn't object to people downloading music without paying for it. "It's weird for me [downloading music]. I'm not from...
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Neil Young Previews Sugar Mountain, Likes Residuals
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"A lot of people have asked me what I get from writing, besides residuals," Neil Young cracks wise in the early minutes of Sugar Mountain -- Live at Canterbury House 1968 CD/DVD, currently streaming on NPR ahead of its December...
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The Return of Bryan Evening, Music Reviewer
Some online music reviews appear to have been written by aliens, children, or teams of highly-motivated infants. How else might their fractured syntax, botched spelling and infantile, near-extra-terrestrial viewpoints be explained? Of these poorly-written music reviews, a tiny slice was...
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Depeche Mode's Web Admin Mashes The Cure with The Commodores
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Daniel Barassi, who has run Depeche Mode's official website for around ten years, makes mash-ups on the side under the name Brat Productions. His latest release (video to the right, download below) mashes the vocals from The Cure's "Just Like...
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